Sorcery and the Single Girl (26 page)

David caught my meaning and nodded slightly. It was time. Time to pass my test, or leave the Coven forever.

I closed my eyes and took three deep breaths. I touched my forehead, my throat, my heart. When I reached out for the Samhain ritual words, they were easy to find, planted so firmly in my memory that I did not need to think, I did not need to worry. I knew them, and none of Haylee’s calculations, none of Graeme’s deceptions, could make me forget.

 

“Witches gather, warders too,

Ringing in a season new.

Join together for this working

Stand against the darkness, lurking.

Pure of faith and strong of heart,

Well-met sisters at the start

Know Samhain power’s, Samhain’s lore,

Driving through this Coven’s core.”

 

With the first words of my incantation, Teresa Alison Sidney swept up her arms, figuratively embracing all who stood around the concrete foundation edge. She clearly gained power from my words, weaving a bond between all of the assembled witches. Despite everything, my spell was working.

Neko stepped closer, bowing his head and huddling by my side. Heat radiated off his body, warming me back to life in the desert of the midnight chill. I rested my fingers on his shoulder, taking a moment to anchor myself against his sturdy strength.

And then I spoke to the centerstone.

“Heart of Stone!” I called to it, brushing my fingers over the flawless marble, relishing its solidity, its safety, its central core of Earth. It responded to its name, vibrating with a power that hummed through my sodalite necklace, whispered through the crystal wands of my earrings.

I raised my silver flask of rainwater high above my head, priming it with moonlight before sprinkling its Water across the perfect Earth circle. The Water added its own note to the stone’s, a higher pitch, a perfect harmony that echoed in my mind. I helped the elements to meld, spreading my fingers wide, coaxing the Water to find the tiniest striations, the invisible gaps.

Only when the water shimmered like an unbroken pool of molten glass, only when Earth and Water were perfectly merged, was I satisfied. As if Neko could read my mind, he handed me the cotton bag of herbs.

I shook out the traditional vervain and rosemary, the radish that David had taught me about weeks before. I set them on the Water-melded Earth, arraying them across the marble in the complicated pattern of the rune othala, a diamond with two trailing legs. The symbol meant home and safety, security and abundance. The herbs added their own music to the working, a clamor of treble notes sparking off the harmony of Earth and Water.

Closing my eyes, I lifted my hands high above my head. I knew the motion would make David’s Torch stand out against my sweater, would let every witch and warder and watcher who bothered to pay attention know that I was wearing a talisman not rightly my own. I did not care, though, as I invoked the power of Fire, the cleansing element, the element that sealed strength into the heart of the centerstone.

For just an instant, I contemplated letting my flame burn brighter. I could make it flare toward the watching Coven. I could force Graeme to push Haylee behind him; I could manipulate him into doing something that
I
wanted, that
I
desired.

Neko shifted beside me, though. As I pulled my strength around him, focused my energies through him, I knew that I’d be wrong to abuse my witchcraft for the petty purpose of revenge.

I bent my wrists and directed a burst of purifying flame at the centerstone.

The herbs shriveled to dust. The rainwater sizzled into nothingness. The marble glowed gold, revealing its stony core for a dozen heartbeats. The music surged in my mind, in my body, in my soul. And then it crashed to silence.

I summoned Air, to blow away the residue. Ash whipped into the night, leaving behind only the acrid memory of burnt offerings. My summoned wind flowed hot over the Coven, giving them a moment’s release from the chill Samhain night. I released the last of the elements, let Air slip away.

The centerstone was ready. It was primed, and it was active, and it would serve as the protective base for the Coven for years to come.

“Now!” I cried, and my voice was as wild as a crow’s.

David stepped forward. He had promised me, weeks ago, that I would not need to lift the centerstone, and he had not lied. A half-dozen warders jumped to his side, ranging about the marble with the precision of a military band. Graeme was no fool: he kept his distance. He stayed by Haylee’s side.

David issued some silent command, and the warders moved as one, shifting the marble circle, easing it into the precise center of the foundation. I nodded when the placement was perfect, and the men stepped back.

It was simple enough to raise my hands one last time. Simple enough to measure the crystal power of the marble. Simple enough to meld that power to the complex mixture of the concrete, to the sand and gravel and cement that had been poured and hardened days before.

I closed my eyes to make the joining perfect, to feel that precise
ping
as the centerstone found its home. I breathed to steady myself. Once. Twice. Three times. Four.

When I opened my eyes, every witch was staring at me in awe. I wondered what they’d expected, what they’d figured I would do. If they’d thought I would succeed. If they’d hoped that I would fail.

I spread my hands over the charged marble. “The centerstone is set,” I intoned.

“So mote it be.” The witches answered as if we’d rehearsed a script for months.

“Let all who would stand against the Coven be turned away at the door.”

“So mote it be.” The warders joined in heartily.

“May Hecate be pleased by our working and look upon her daughters with joy.”

“So mote it be.” The watchers added their voices to the chorus, rocking the foundation with the power of their affirmation.

The air was filled with the tinkling sound of breaking glass, and a million silver shards rained down upon us. Witches exclaimed and warders swore, and the watchers stood like statues. I blinked, more to clear my mind than my eyes, and I realized that the Council’s protective silver circle had been broken.

I reached out to capture a last glint of the spectral light. The motion set me off balance, though, and I would have fallen if David had not spun to my side, catching my arm with a confident iron hand. “Easy,” he whispered. “Give yourself a moment to recover.”

But I didn’t have a moment.

Teresa stood before me. For the first time, I saw her as nothing more than an ordinary witch. A sister. An equal. “Jane Madison,” she proclaimed, evoking immediate silence from the babbling group around us.

“Coven Mother.”

“We welcome you into the Washington Coven. We are honored to call you sister, and to have you stand inside our circle.”

I forced my spine straight, taking my arm from my warder’s grasp. “It’s over then?”

“It is done.”

“And the Coven waives its claim to the property of Hannah Osgood? You recognize that I am the rightful owner of all the books and crystals and magical wares located in my home?”

Teresa smiled calmly. “The Coven recognizes your right.”

I pointed toward Neko. “And my familiar is bound to me, and me alone? The Coven stakes no claim?”

“The Coven has no right to your familiar.” Teresa gestured up the hill, toward her unseen home. She dispensed with formality and said, “Come on, Jane. Let’s go back to the house. There’s plenty to eat and drink there, and we can get to know each other better.”

I ran a quick mental tally. Books, crystals, familiar.

That left my warder. I took a step back, so that I could read David’s face, stripped clean in the moonlight. We couldn’t speak mind to mind. My powers did not stretch that far. But we knew each other. We had trained together. He had guided me, supported me, leaped to defend me when I’d been worst betrayed. I cocked my head at the slightest angle, asking a silent question.

Without hesitation, he nodded. Once. Firmly. Calmly.

I turned back to Teresa. “No.”

“No?” She sounded like she’d never heard the word before.

“I won’t be joining you tonight. Tonight, or any other time, actually.”

“Not joining me? But you’re one of us now. You set the centerstone. Surely you know what that means.”

“That you’ve used me to complete your work? To secure your safety?”

Teresa looked hurt; her perfect lips pursed into a pout. “Jane, you’re the strongest sister in the Coven. The strongest witch in Washington, except for me.” She spared a tiny smile, and I knew I was supposed to feel privileged. Honored. Special. “Think of what we’ll be able to do together. You and me, Jane, sharing our powers.”

I looked from Teresa to Haylee to Graeme, and then to all the other magical folk. “Teri,” I said, relishing my unauthorized use of her nickname, “there is no way in Hell I’m going to share any magical powers with you. I am not going to stand in your living room, eating and drinking like you’re my new best friend. I’m not joining the Coven.”

Now Teresa looked alarmed. “If this is about Haylee, you can be certain we’ll address what she did. She had no right to try to sabotage your initiation.”

“Teri!” Haylee exclaimed. She might have said more, but Graeme clamped his fingers tight around her arm.

Teresa gave her supposed best friend a dirty look, but then she addressed me with an honesty that would have been attractive a day before—weeks before, months before. “Jane, I’ll admit that I asked Haylee to find out about your powers. The Coven needed to know your capabilities. Your interests. What you could share with us, once we welcomed you in.” Teresa’s eyes narrowed. “But I
never
told her to use her warder. I never authorized the sort of gaming, the manipulation…”

Haylee spluttered for words, jerking her arm out of Graeme’s grasp.

I dragged my disgusted glance from all of them. “It’s not really about Haylee. Not even about Graeme. It’s about the Coven, Teri. It’s about witches setting up cliques for themselves. Counting people out, instead of bringing them in. Cutting women off from power—any amount of power—instead of helping them to increase whatever they’ve got.”

Teresa swallowed hard, but she managed a shaky smile. “Jane, if you’re talking about your mother and grandmother, I’m sure that we can do something. Now that you’re in the Coven, you and I can discuss their membership, just the two of us. I’m certain we can find a way to make everyone happy.”

“That’s just it,” I said. “I’m already happy. And I have been all along, even without the Coven. I guess,
especially
without the Coven. Goodbye, Teri.”

David and Neko caught their cues flawlessly. The three of us turned as one. We flowed up the hillside, past the gorgeous house, around to the waiting Lexus.

David opened the back door for me, and I remembered how I had collapsed after my first visit to the Coven. I recalled dozing on my way home, utterly drained, unable to sit up, to speak, to control myself in any way.

This time, though, I was energized. I had stood up to Teresa and gained strength, rather than lost it. “No,” I said. “I’ll sit up front.”

I had walked away from the Popular Snobs. They had issued me an engraved invitation, and I had thrown it back in their faces. Me, the girl who always got the third out. The girl who Brett Lindquist asked to dance on a cruel-joke dare.

I didn’t need them. I had set their centerstone, but I was ready to leave them to their petty games. I had won.

Neko waited until David started the car before he pouted. “Couldn’t we have gone inside for just a moment? Just long enough to grab a tray of salmon canapés?”

W
alk On In said the sign on the door.

But sometimes it wasn’t that easy. I dragged my toes along the sidewalk, feeling as shy as a preschooler at her first playdate.

I’d awakened at five in the morning, stunningly refreshed for having had a total of three hours of sleep. My first thought, upon consciousness, wasn’t about the Samhain working. It wasn’t about the Coven, or about how I might live beside them as a lone witch. It wasn’t about Haylee or Graeme or the cruel deception they’d played.

It was about brownies.

About six batches of burned and hopeless brownies—and the realization that I needed to have
something
for Peabridge patrons to eat when the library doors opened at nine. Either that, or I had to admit my irresponsibility to Evelyn.

Maybe I
had
managed to set the Coven’s centerstone. I’d confronted the strongest witch on the Eastern Seaboard and told her I didn’t want to play in her sandbox. I’d decided to stake a claim to an unknown, unknowable magical future.

But there was no way in hell I could face the ripped and filthy brownie recipe that was glued to my kitchen counter with egg white and melted chocolate goo.

It was long past time that I came to Cake Walk to make my amends. I shifted a bouquet from one hand to the other. I’d harvested the flowers from the Peabridge gardens—they’d be succumbing to a freeze in the next few weeks anyway. The bright crimson and yellow and orange seemed to glow from within.

Through the years, Melissa and I had joked that we should bring each other flowers on a very regular basis, because no man was likely to do so. I thought ruefully about the floral tribute that Graeme had sent me after our first “date.” I had been so pleased. So totally and completely sucked in.

I’d been such an idiot.

Would Melissa laugh at me now? Would she throw the bouquet at my feet, tell me to take my crappy offering and go away? Would she say she didn’t want to be friends anymore, that she was tired of investing more in our friendship than I did? Tired of someone who had thrown her over for a
guy
—and a lousy, lying scoundrel of a guy at that.

My stomach executed a queasy backflip, and I thought about just taking the flowers home. I could always call Melissa later. We could limp through a conversation on the phone, grimacing separately at the awkward silences. In fact, I could send her e-mail and avoid talking to her altogether! That way, I wouldn’t interrupt her. I would be showing more respect for her. What did I think I was doing, anyway, showing up at the bakery first thing in the morning? That was her busiest time of day. If I took the flowers home, I was just being considerate. Very, very considerate.

I turned away and took a half-dozen steps before I realized I was being absurd. Melissa was my best friend—current spat be damned. Besides, she was my only hope, where emergency baked goods and the Peabridge were concerned. Before I could lose my nerve again, I marched into Cake Walk, tromped up to the counter and held out the flowers, as if they were the scepter to the throne of all England.

“‘The quality of mercy is not strain’d,’” I quoted, hoping to prompt her into generous forgiveness.

“‘It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,’” Melissa replied, as if we’d been conversing all morning. She didn’t even bother to cite
Merchant of Venice
as the source of my brilliant conversational gambit. It felt great to be back in the comfortable territory of Shakespeare. Stable. Familiar. Completely, utterly geeky, the way that best friends can be.

She accepted the flowers and smiled appreciatively. It took one twist of her wrist for her to locate the best view of the bouquet, the perfect angle to display the riot of color. “Thanks,” she said.

I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I stomped out of here that day.”

“It was more than a bit crazy. Good for business, but bad for carrying on any sort of conversation.”

“I should have called.”

“So should I.”

“I’ve been thinking about you a lot.”

She smiled. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking about you, too.” She lifted a heavy glass dome and placed a trio of Bunny Bites on a pottery plate. “Want to try my new tea? Apricot Darjeeling.”

“Do you mind? I mean, do you have time?”

“Oh, we’ll probably get interrupted.”

“Well, so long as it’s good for business,” I said, and she laughed.

So, that was easier than I’d thought it would be. But that’s what best friends were really all about, right? We could reveal our inner selves. Admit our shortcomings. Show up at the start of a workday with a handful of flowers and a few stalks of autumn berries, and all would be forgiven.

It took Melissa seconds to fill a pot of water, to add a handful of tea leaves. She took down a small tray and added my favorite pottery mug and a stainless steel tea strainer. I smiled as I took the tray from her, but I needed to catch a yawn against the back of my teeth.

“Tired?”

“I had a late night,” I said. My understatement almost cracked me up. Maybe I was punchier than I thought.

“You’d feel better if you started the day with a few sun salutations.”

“My back would never forgive me if I started the day with sun salutations.”

She shook her head. “Yoga is good for you. You’ll get better if you stick with it.” I made a face, but she persisted. “They’re having a special class at the studio this weekend. Hot yoga. They raise the temperature by ten degrees. It really increases the benefit of the workout. Come on…” she wheedled. “You know you want to go.”

“I know I do
not
want to do anything of the sort.”

“Rock, scissors, paper.”

“Melissa!”

But she had already folded her own fingers into a loose fist. Why did I let myself get roped into this sort of thing? I matched her hands with my own and counted to two before casting paper. She threw rock. “Paper covers rock!” I shouted. No sweaty yoga for me. Not this weekend.

Before Melissa could demand a new contest, or best three out of five, or five out of seven, or whatever it would take for her to be declared torture mistress of my weak and out-of-shape body, I pushed ahead with the main reason for my visit. “Hey,” I said, reaching casually for a Bunny Bite. “Gran and Clara had an idea.”

Melissa leaned back against the sink, gracious in her momentary defeat. “Let me guess. They have more secret relatives stashed in a closet somewhere. They can’t wait to introduce you to Great-Aunt Edna and her triplet of witchy daughters, and they think that Cake Walk would be the perfect meeting place?”

“Ha-ha. No. This idea concerns you a little more directly.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“No, it’s not bad. Really.” Enough. Time to forge ahead. What was the worst that would happen? Melissa would say no, and I’d be stuck taking a trip to the grocery store for gummy lumps of partially hydrogenated lard? I steeled myself and plunged into the entrepreneurial waters. “You know how things are crazy at the coffee counter at work? Well, Gran and Clara thought that you could help out there. We could cut back to serving just plain coffee, but we could sell Cake Walk pastries instead, to make up the difference. You know, lure patrons in with quality, rather than quantity of caffeine offerings. More profit for you. Less fuss for us.”

“And we could all bask in the smiles of happy Georgetown matrons, strolling the streets and eating baked goods from the Peabridge to the canal.” She completed my vision glibly, but I could see that the idea appealed to her.

I put on my best wheedling voice. “We could print up a sign, let people know that the pastries come from Cake Walk. We could even keep your business cards on the counter, so that people can contact you if they want to cater a party. It would be expanding your business, without expanding your business, if you know what I mean.”

“It would be a lot of extra work,” Melissa said, but her protest was halfhearted.

“Not for you! You would just make another tray or two of treats—send us a couple of samples from everything you’ve already made for the main shop.” I shrugged, to convey just how easy this all would be. “I bet it wouldn’t add half an hour to your day. If that.”

“‘Thou art a mocker of my labour.’”

I laughed, thinking back to brunch at Luna Grill, when I had thought the same quotation in response to Gran’s suggestion. “Orlando,” I said, rising to the Shakespearean challenge.
“AsYou Like It.”
I bounced a little on the balls of my feet. “Come on. I’m serious. Let’s try this.”

Finally, Melissa nodded. “Okay. But let’s call it a three-month trial. If the sales aren’t worth it, or if it takes too much time…”

“Three months!” I toasted her with my tea mug, barely keeping milk-infused Apricot Darjeeling from sloshing onto my fingers.

“When were you thinking of starting?” she asked.

Oh. There was that little detail. I glanced at the cake plates filled with treats, the refrigerated glass cabinet already arrayed to seduce early-morning snackers. “Today?” I offered her my most winning smile.

“Jane!”

“I tried to do this on my own! Really! I was going to bake brownies, but they didn’t really, well, they didn’t quite turn out….”

She was laughing. My best friend was laughing at me. My best friend was leaning against the sink in her bakery, folding her arms across her chest, shaking her head and laughing at me. “Let me guess,” she said when she could catch her breath. “You ruined three batches.”

“Six,” I said. “It might have been more, but I ran out of ingredients.”

Before she could gloat, the door opened. Gran and Clara walked in.

“Oh!” Clara said, when I turned around to face them.

“Good morning, dear,” Gran said, as if we met for Cake Walk tea and crumpets every morning.

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked.

Clara shuffled from one foot to the other, glancing from Melissa to me, not quite ready to answer. I took advantage of her silence to say, “See, Gran? I kept my promise.”

“Of course you did, dear. It never crossed my mind for a moment that you would go back on your word.”

I rolled my eyes.

Clara stepped forward and said, “Jane, your grandmother phoned this morning. She was eating her cornflakes when she looked at her calendar, and she saw that last night was Samhain.”

“Your calendar had an entry for Samhain?” I asked in disbelief. Mine didn’t go beyond the Federal holidays.

“Of course not, dear,” Gran said, shaking her head. “I
wrote
it there. Peacock-blue ink, you know. Because it was a special day for you. Er, night, I suppose.”

My eyes welled up. “Gran—”

Melissa looked at me, obviously lost. “Samhain?”

“Halloween,” I said, leaping back to the solid ground of bare facts. “Witches’ Sabbath. The night I was supposed to be inducted into the Washington Coven.”

“Oh!” Melissa said. “I didn’t realize—what happened?”

“Let’s just say, I’m not going to be attending any Coven meetings anytime soon.”

“Oh, dear,” Gran said, raising her hand to my cheek. “I’m so sorry. I think they were just being hard on you because they didn’t like your mother and me. They had no right to make things so difficult for you.”

She didn’t know the half of it. And I didn’t think I’d be telling her about Graeme and Haylee any time soon.

“No. It’s okay. Really. And it wasn’t about you. Not exactly.” I smiled at all of them. “I did set the centerstone. But then I realized that I didn’t want anything to do with the Coven. Not ever again. I was the one who chose to walk away.”

Melissa nodded, accepting my words at face value. I suspected it would take Gran and Clara a little longer to come around, because they knew how important Teresa had seemed to me. How important I’d thought she was to my happiness. To my life.

Pouring a mug of hot water for Clara’s tea and a cup of coffee for Gran, Melissa said, “I’m sure there’s a connection here somehow, but I have to admit that I’m missing it. Gran realized that last night was Samhain, and so both of you came down to Cake Walk this morning…”

“Well,” Clara said, selecting a tea bag from the astonishing array in Melissa’s teak box. “We realized that Jane wouldn’t have time to do any baking last night. We knew that she wouldn’t be able to launch her new project at the Peabridge.”

Gran straightened proudly. “So, we thought we’d come to Cake Walk to buy enough pastries to get the new program off on the right foot. I hope you don’t mind, Jane. We only thought to tide you over until you have time to make the baklava.”

“Baklava?” Melissa asked incredulously.

“Don’t ask,” I said. Before I could break the bad baklava news to Gran, the bakery door opened again.

“David!” Melissa exclaimed before I could turn around.

There he was. My warder. Looking none the worse for his long night’s service and short night’s sleep. “Good morning,” he said, making one general nod, as if he had fully expected to find all of us gathered in the shop.

“Let me guess,” Melissa said.

David said, “I knew that Jane needed something for the library, and I was certain she wouldn’t have anything ready this morning.”

“Now wait a minute!” I said. “Doesn’t
anyone
think that I can bake a tray of brownies?”

“No!” they all said, in perfect unison.

As if on cue, Neko walked through the door.

“Oh,” he said.

“Et tu, Brute?” I said, making Melissa smirk.

Neko looked over his shoulder, as if he expected someone else to be there, ready to receive my Shakespearean accusation of betrayal. Following his gaze to its logical extreme out the front window of the shop, I saw Jacques, huddling unhappily beneath an elm tree.

Melissa must have made the same extrapolation. Her jaw tightened for a heartbeat, and then she forced a smile. “Go ahead, Neko. Tell Jacques he can come inside.”

I held up my hand. “Really? You don’t have to do this.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know.” And then she busied herself pouring coffee for David and milk for Neko, and a steaming hot chocolate for the Frenchman who would never be her boyfriend. When all of us had our beverages firmly in hand, she began to fill two pasteboard boxes, selecting pastries that would keep well at the library, even if they sat on the counter for the better part of the day. Which they wouldn’t. I was certain.